How to use this alongside a hardhat project?

[izcoser]

Hi. I already have a hardhat project where I made all my contracts, but I notice from the README.md that create-eth-app creates its own contracts folder.

How do I skip that to use my own previously made contracts?

[PaulRBerg]

Hi! there's another discussion (#132) about whether it would be worth it to add smart contract development. But as of now, the answer is that CEA doesn't support that by default.

What I personally recommend is to avoid maintaining the smart contracts and the frontend code under the same roof. It's easier to separate them into two or more repositories because they have little in common. You shouldn't need hot reloading to test your contracts - your contracts should be tested programmatically to give the best security guarantees for your users.

The "contracts" folder that CEA generates is a frontend-only linkage folder. It's a directory with the smart contract ABIs and the addresses - no Solidity code.

[izcoser]

Thanks!

[PaulRBerg]

Side-note: I happen to be the author of one of the popular Hardhat-based templates out there. Check it out, it might save you hours the next time you create a Hardhat project:

https://github.com/PaulRBerg/hardhat-template